Fuel Elements for Integral Superheat

Assessments of the economics of power generation using integral nuclear superheater fuel elements of the rod type are pessimistic at the present time. On the other hand, combination boiler-superheater fuel elements, if they can be shown to perform satisfactorily in a reactor, offer much greater promise of producing power from an integral superheat reactor at an attractive price. The characteristics required of an economic superheat fuel element, and the manner in which the novel type of element described herein intrinsically supplies those characteristics, is discussed together with the results of certain design analyses and out-of-pile experiments.